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Crook Log
This area called Talehanges
– a grassy area in which to cut firewood near a road
Crook Log. Early 19th pub in appearance, but may contain
some 18th century structure. The extension at an angle to the east is also
early 19th century, though much altered.
Said to date from 1605. Mentioned
in ‘A Tale of Two Cities’. 1786 was called Fox and Hounds and was required to
build stables. Was with Gravesend Brewery Beckett, then Russels, then Kidds,
then Charringtons. By 1887 was Crook Log
Hotel.
2 Drayman pub
4/6
Crook Log, 1880s with decorative features.
Polo
Bar, formerly called the Upton Hotel and The Jolly Draymen, a pub of 1870
though much altered.
A toll-gate stood on the Dover Road, the main gates of
Danson Park on the site.
Brampton Road
Crook Log Leisure Centre with bar.
Danson
Park
Marked thus on the Ordnance Survey map of 1805, preserving
the old name ‘Danson’ found as ‘Dansington’ in 1284, ‘Densinton’ 1301,
‘Danston’ 1327, ‘Danson’ c.1762, possibly "farmstead associated with a man
called Denesige', from an Old English personal name with medial connective
‘ing’ and ‘tun’. The Manor of
Danson is first mentioned in a Subsidy Roll of 1301, the owner being Gregory de
Densinton, and again in a deed dated 1407. The next known reference dates from
1574 when the manor belonged to Matthew Parker, second son of the Archbishop of
Canterbury. Other deeds date back as far as 1598, but until 1695 there is no
deed relating to the whole manor.
Grounds landscaped in the later 1760s in the manner of
Capability Brown - Fean Garwood, the head gardener, a
disciple of Brown laid out the new estate.
A belt of trees were planted all around the edge of the park and an old
cottage at Blendon was given a spire and renamed Chapel House There are Ring belts of trees deliberately
uneven in contour, clumps, and avenue. Trees used as punctuation. Graced by many varieties of trees, of several
generations' growth, including Wellingtonia pines, poplar, lime, oak, plane,
beech, elm, cedar and others, and fine drives and ornamental water with
waterfowl of various kinds, the park is a delightful spot at every season of
the year. Estate purchased by
the Bexley Urban District Council for use as a public park in 1924. They were formally opened on 13th April, 1925
by H.R.H. the late Princess Royal. The park has a fine rock garden, water
garden and Olde English Garden an open-air swimming pool, and facilities for
boating, tennis, football hockey netball, bowls and putting. The park now looks
a little bare, with its second-generation trees and the park boundary is now
marked by all-too-visible semi-detacheds. Field patterns can be determined in the
adjoining streets
Doric temple was there and
is now The Bury near Stevenage
Danson House -
was a farm originally settled in Anglo-Saxon times. The name probably came from
the first settler. In the middle Ages, the landowner was the Archbishop of
Canterbury, and there was a succession of tenant farmers. In the course of the
17th century the house was enlarged and in 1695 it was sold as a gentleman's
seat to John Styleman. When he died the land was acquired by John Boyd, a
London merchant and a director of the East India Company. Boyd bought up
adjacent land over three times the area of the present park and he wanted a
grander house.
Lake. The stream
was dammed, the old house becoming submerged beneath the lake, which was
constructed in 1775 by Nathanial Richmond by damming Woodside Brook. The 11.5
hectares lake is now a major feature. The Dam is 152.4m long and is an earth
embankment with a drainage sluice at the south end. It makes for a Large, rather uncompromising
lake this being the largest sheet of ornamental water, with the exception of
the Serpentine, for many miles around.
Danson House 'Crystalline villa'. Built 1759- 62.1762
by Sir Robert Taylor for John Boyd. Grandest of the suburban estates. Geometric
purity - the height of fashion in its day and in splendid isolation - A model
for less exalted suburban dwellings. It shows the individual and his family as
the icon of independent family life. The house consists of a piano nobile and
half-storey above a stone basement, the walls rendered, the roofs low and
slated. It has five windows on each side, but is not square. The decoration of the three main rooms was
completed, probably in c. 1770, with exquisite marble chimneypieces. The saloon is decorated with fine inset
paintings of gods and goddesses between foliage panels - 1766 and the artist's
name 'Pavillo' is recorded. This is probably Charles Pavilion, a little-known
French painter, who died in Edinburgh in 1772. Several
artists were commissioned to paint the panels in the- main rooms. Greek or
Roman antiquities were acquired for the house and for the grounds - The Danson
Vase, carved for the Emperor Hadrian, is now in the Orangery, Kensington
Gardens. Sir William Chambers had been engaged to design the ceilings, chimney
pieces and cornices. An unusual
feature of the interior was the one-manual organ in the music room, built in
1766 by George England, and restored in 1959.
The estate was sold to John Johnson, a retired
captain of the 62nd Regiment of Foot who had the stables built. The next
owner-occupier was a railway engineer, Alfred Bean, Chairman of the Bexleyheath
Line in 1895. When Mrs Bean died the estate was acquired by Bexley Urban
District Council and The Mansion was used as a museum. During World War Two, it
was used as the headquarters of Civil Defence. Later the principal floor was
used for receptions while rooms above were used by the Parks Department. Fortunately,
English Heritage has stepped in and has refurbished the mansion.
Stables. Free standing pavilions demolished.
Designed with the same lucidity. Semi derelict but became a pub. Designed with the same
lucidity, though built c. 1800,
Swimming pool
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